ON THE COVER
Trapped in Ukraine
Pontiac business owner shares stories of employees trapped in Ukraine.
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
TOP: Vladimir Gendelman, owner of Company Folders Inc, during a happier time. Today, he is preoccupied with helping his employees trapped in Ukraine.
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Pontiac business owner, originally from Kharkiv, Ukraine, is desperately trying to help his employees stuck in Ukraine. Vladimir Gendelman, 47, whose business Company Folders, Inc. has workers in his home country, is consulting with military personnel on the best ways to help them stay safe. They talked about “general terms of what happens during a war,” Gendeman explains. “What are the strategically good places to be and strategically not good places to be?” One employee in Lviv, Gendelman says, was able to cross the border into Poland, thanks to the city’s close proximity to Ukraine’s western border. This was on the morning before Ukraine’s martial law was enacted, which prevents men ages 18-60 from leaving the country. Another employee in Dnepropetrovsk, Gendelman continues, was in a bad area strategically. His home was surrounded by three bridges, which makes it a key target for the Russian army. “I pulled up his address on Google Maps, and I realized that he was between two bridges and very close to a middle bridge which has railroads going over it,” Gendelman says. “This makes it the most dangerous area.” Gendelman advised his employee to try to get out of Dnepropetrovsk as soon as he could, so his employee managed to escape to take shelter with his sister, who lives in a smaller village. “There is practically nothing going on there,” Gendelman says of the village. “It’s quiet, but occasionally he hears shots.” continued on page 18
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MARCH 10 • 2022
